Woman as a mother, under the Old Dispensation, differs in many important respects from woman as a mother under the New.  The history of woman is divided into three portions:  1.  Woman as God made her; 2.  Woman as Sin made her; 3.  Woman as Christ made her.

1.  The position of woman, between her humiliation in Eden and her restoration in Bethlehem, was in many respects sad to contemplate.  She was more of a slave than an equal.  Eve passes, unrecognized and unnamed, to her grave.  Sarah, the wife of Abram, finds mention, and is described in such a manner that you behold her sharing her husband’s love, though the picture of her in the home is not a pleasant one.  We can hardly understand how Abram could have suffered her to enter the house of Abimelech, nor how she could have taken Hagar to her husband, and thus again have led man astray—­the man whom God called to be the Father of the Faithful.  Eve, the mother of the race, tempted Adam, and Sarah, the mother of the patriarchs, tempted Abram; and lack of faith in God was the cause of their ruin, and consequent humiliation.  There is something sad about the manner of her life.  Her home was a simple tent, surrounded by flocks and herds, and crowded with rubbish of every description.  Woman in the East is very much to-day what Adam saw her on his first entrance into the wilderness.  The effects of sin followed her from generation to generation.  The gloom of the night is still over her as she spends her days in out-door labor.  She weeds the cotton, and assists in pruning the vine and gathering the grapes.  She goes forth in the morning, bearing not only her implements of husbandry, but also her babes in the cradle; and returning in the evening, she prepares her husband’s supper and sets it before him, but never thinks of eating of it until after he is done.  One of the early objections the Nestorians made to the Female Seminary was, that it would disqualify their daughters for their accustomed toil.  In after years woman might be seen carrying her Spelling-book to the field along with her Persian hoe, little dreaming that she was thus taking the first step towards the substitution of the new implement for the old.

Nestorian parents used to consider the birth of a daughter a great calamity.  When asked the number of their children, they would count up their sons, and make no mention of their daughters.  The birth of a son was an occasion for great joy and giving of gifts.  Neighbors hastened to congratulate the happy father, but days might elapse before the neighborhood knew of the birth of a daughter.  It was deemed highly improper to inquire after the health of a wife, and the nearest approach to it was to ask after the house or household.  Formerly a man never called his wife by name, but in speaking of her would say the mother of “so and so,” giving the name of the child; or the daughter of “so and so,” giving the name of her father; or simply that woman did this or that.  Nor did the wife presume to call her husband’s name, or to address him in the presence of his parents, who, it will be borne in mind, lived in the same apartment.  They were married very young, often at the age of fourteen, and without any consultation of their own preference, either as to time or person.